Time for another time contrast blog entry. Since today is the 25th Anniversary of the Fairly OddParents’s premiere on Nickelodeon, I’m going to cover Nickelodeon’s silver treasure from the 2000’s today. As you’re all familiar (since this is a popular show), The Fairly OddParents is about a 10-year-old boy named Timmy Turner, who was neglected by his parents and was left with Vicky, the evil babysitter. The misery he was put through earned himself two fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda. Every time Timmy makes a wish, they grant his wishes. But by having fairies, it opened new rivalries (Mr. Crocker being the biggest one), while several episodes were about his poorly-thought wishes and the consequences of his wishes. Nearly every episode comes with this lesson: be careful what you wish for.
Like SpongeBob, Fairly OddParents was enjoyable from the days I was a child and was popular enough to last over a decade. Let’s say that you watched both shows when you were a kid, assuming that you’re in your 30s. Back then, both shows were quite enjoyable. If you watch SpongeBob today, you would like it just as much as if you were a kid. That’s because SpongeBob is a timeless classic. Not only that, but it also resonates with everyday life today. The Fairly OddParents, on the other hand, is not as enjoyable to watch as an adult like you would as a kid. Let’s forget all of the controversies surrounding the creator. Let’s also forget that the show went downhill. Let’s not even bring up any of the sequel series.
The problem with Fairly OddParents is that the show is filled with juvenile humor, even more than SpongeBob. Just watching the first five seasons only, while skipping both “Twistory” and “It’s a Wishful Life”, you can see how it’s not as enjoyable to watch as an adult as it is when you’re a kid. It’s still good to watch the older episodes now. It just didn’t capture the same charm SpongeBob did. Funny enough, one of the rules in Da Rules is that fairies can only grant wishes to children. In of their TV movies, “Channel Chasers”, there is a rule where once the child grows up, the fairies leave the child, while the child forgets everything about the fairies while all of the magic they had were gone. Well, it was more enjoyable to watch as a kid, but not as an adult. I guess that rule in Da Rules applies to the entire show in respect to real world audiences.
This is not to say that you’re too immature if you still enjoy the show today. This is more about a general judgment. After all, The Fairly OddParents isn’t even the only show to have juvenile humor that ruins the entire show for adults. Cartoon Network is notorious for having these kinds of shows. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Camp Lazlo, Chowder, Flapjack, and the many crappy cartoons that weren’t as good as the aforementioned shows that aired around the same time all had the same problem. This is especially true for Johnny Test. I will say that in the last few years, the Disney Channel had a similar show to The Fairly OddParents, but was rather cleaner on the juvenile humor part.
Other Things You’ll See Differently:
If you previously watched The Fairly OddParents when you were younger, and you decided to watch it again today, here’s what you would notice about The Fairly OddParents that you wouldn’t have noticed as a kid.
- First, Timmy’s parents were rather abusive. If you have noticed, they constantly leave him with Vicky. It was understandable if it was during the weekdays, but during the weekends, they try to look for stuff to do to get away with taking care of their son. If you seen the episodes “The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker”, “It’s a Wishful Life”, and “Future Lost”, you would hate Timmy’s parents even more. What these episodes imply is that the whole reason why Mr. and Mrs. Turner constantly leave Timmy with Vicky (or take him to another place he hates) is because they wanted a daughter instead of a son. At least they were more caring in “The Abra-Catastrophe” and “Channel Chasers”.
- The episode “The Big Problem” actually teaches the harsh realities of adulthood. While we all have to grow up, which is something you can’t stop, you also have to deal with the realities adults have. You have to act normally in public, work (which has its own problems like low wages and workplace drama), drive (which is dangerous), and make payments (like that $165 bill Timmy had to pay). You also can’t hang out with a minor like you could’ve as a kid, and if you engage in any attacks on minors as an adult (which includes hitting 17-year-old bullies), you can be charged for assault.
- The above fact can also apply to why Mr. Crocker is rather insane. In a show where only children are young enough to believe in fairies, Mr. Crocker having a fairy obsession would make him a weirdo in public. At the end of “The Abra-Catastrophe”, he gets sent to a mental hospital, not as a punishment for taking over the world, but rather for being overly obsessive over fairies. This comes with a lesson that if you’re acting like a kid in public or obsess over stuff only geared towards kids, people wouldn’t like you.
- This is not much of a child vs adult thing, but rather a past society vs future society thing. The episode “Love Struck!” comes with a homophobic message. When Timmy wished both males and females were separated onto different sides of the planet, Cupid gets weaker. This implies that the only type of love is male to female love, which basically states that homosexual love isn’t true love, which is something that won’t sit well in today’s society. Not to mention, but the gender stereotypes were rather exaggerated in this episode, especially on the boys’ side.
- Another of these “past society vs future society” things, there was a common joke were Timmy lies about getting things off the internet when he makes a wish and others see it. To be honest, that was set in a time when the internet was rather novel and was something not for kids. In an age where the internet and social media are dominant, there’s no way Timmy can use “the internet” as a way to cover his secret of having Cosmo and Wanda.
- “Channel Chasers” can be seen as a satire. At the beginning, we saw what the world looked like had Vicky succeeded, and at the end, we saw what the world looked like had Timmy came to stop Vicky. How did Vicky take over the world? She went into the Biographical Channel while having their Dictator Week promotion. This was supposed to be a parody of the History Channel’s then-obsession with Adolf Hitler, and how stuff like that are not suited for teenagers.
- Speaking of “Channel Chasers”, the whole reason why Timmy wished he was in the TV universe was so he doesn’t grow up, and thus never lose his fairies. Although he did grow up at the end, he is right that cartoon characters are the same age forever. While the movie played aging realistically as shown in the end, it took several episodes of the show, as well as reruns and rewatches on Paramount+ to prove that cartoon characters never age, even for just Fairly OddParents alone.
- This may sound off-topic, but the lesson that everyone grows up is a lot more depressing when you talk about the realities of aging starting at age 40 rather than the realities of aging starting at age 18. While you can’t be a kid forever, you start deteriorating and stop doing things as fast as you could when you reach a higher age. Timmy might be even more scared to learn the lesson surrounding that one Pokémon Sun/Moon postgame Eevee sidequest (which does very little to sugarcoat the realities of aging) than the lesson Cosmo and Wanda teaches about how he will lose his fairies as an adult.
- Timmy didn’t really have any common sense when making some wishes. Like in that episode “The Land Before Timmy”, he could’ve wished that technology wasn’t so abrupt or faulty instead of wishing in a world without technology. Or in the episode “Most Wanted Wish”, he could’ve wished that people weren’t ignoring him to the extremes instead of wishing to be the most wanted person.
Is it Still Enjoyable Today:
The answer is yes. Given the internet memes using Fairly OddParents as a source material, a sequel series, and its long run on Nicktoons Network, you can see why it has been popular for a long time. Even considering its 2000s setting, kids would enjoy it no matter what generation it is. If you want to watch it today, go ahead and watch it. I’m sure you would enjoy it now.
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